The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad activist organization, said all the members of the crisis group set up by President Assad to try to put down the revolt were are either dead or injured. But there was no official confirmation of that account.

At the Pentagon on Wednesday morning, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said that situation in Syria "is rapidly spinning out of control" and warned Mr. Assad’s government to safeguard its large stockpile of chemical weapons.

In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov, offering Russia’s first official commentary on the bombing, said via his Twitter account that the attack had put consensus between members of the Security Council even farther out of reach.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Previously, the UK government has talked about sanctions, both economic and military. But now that it seems to be a civil war, does the Assad regime have the right to buy weapons from abroad, under the pretext that they are the legitimate government fighting a civil insurrection?